


Finger Painting

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pendulumshipping - Freeform, Post-Series, Yuya and Reiji live in an apartment together with Reira, i just want to write cute things okay, yuya and reiji are basically reira's dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7260439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What on earth happened while I was gone?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finger Painting

“What on earth happened while I was gone?”

Until Reiji had spoken, Yuya hadn't even looked up at the sound of the door opening. Now, the young man's head bobbed up, blinking as though he were coming out of a nap. One bright streak of red paint ran across his forehead, and there was a smear of blue on the very tip of his nose that he didn't seem aware of, as he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and smeared some yellow on top.

“Huh?” he said, as though too groggy to really know what was going on. Then he blinked again and his face cleared, and he looked around the room. “Oh.”

A light blush rose to his cheeks as he glanced over what had become of the living room. Newspaper littered the floor, some of it balled up in the corners, but most of it spread out in sheets to catch heavy splatters of paint in a rainbow of shades. A messy palette of a million colors starting to mix to brown in the middle sat beside Yuya's elbow, which was digging into the newspaper as he laid on his stomach. A huge sheet of paper, which appeared to be about ten pages of copy paper taped together, was covered in huge streaks of paint which had almost certainly been applied with Yuya's fingers, as his hands were coated in what looked like almost three separate layers of dried paint with sprinkles of fresh paint on top. Next to Yuya, Reira was curled up and fast asleep, his paint sprinkled face pressed into the newspaper. His usually ever-present sweater had been laid neatly on the couch, out of reach of the paint, but the rest of Reira's clothes sported new splashes of color, and his hands seemed to match Yuya's paint gloves.

“Sorry, I guess we got a little carried away,” Yuya said sheepishly.

He glanced over at Reira as though just noticing that he had fallen asleep.

“I didn't even know we had this much paint,” Reiji said. A smile pulled at his lips in spite of himself. He wished that his phone wasn't tucked away into his bag because the pair of them looked absolutely adorable; he wanted a photograph.

“We didn't; Reira and I went to the store,” Yuya said.

He pushed himself onto his knees and laid his hands on his legs, either oblivious or uncaring of the paint he was staining into them with his touch. He looked like he was a work of abstract art himself; not only were his face and hands decorated with stray streaks, but his tank top had a smiley face painted messily onto the front, and his bare arms were like sprinkled cupcakes with all the rainbow flecks all down his arms. Reiji couldn't help but notice that the tank top—a rare fashion choice for Yuya—very nicely accented the performer's arms, toned from years of acrobatics.

“Sorry about the mess,” Yuya said, laughing lightly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Reira found some dumb finger paintings I did when I was a kid in the back closet while I was digging around for some of those photos we wanted to frame. He said he hadn't finger painted before so...I kinda thought I had to fix that.”

He started to reach over to brush some of Reira's hair out of his face, and then paused, staring at the back of his hand as though only just now realizing how much paint was there. Reiji let out a breath of a laugh, setting his jacket and briefcase down on the end table by the door.

“You don't have to apologize—I'm sure Reira enjoyed himself.”

He picked his way carefully between paint blobs, crinkling the newspaper until he reached Reira. The boy was really a mess, but it seemed wrong to just make him sleep on the floor like this. Reiji hesitated only a moment before he carefully rolled Reira into his arms and up against his chest. Reira stirred lightly, lips parting. His hand curled absently into Reiji's scarf, leaving tiny flecks of yellow against it.

“Will you help me put some towels on his bed? I don't mind the paint too much but it seems a shame to get it on the new comforter...”

“Way ahead of ya,” Yuya said, bouncing up to his feet without using his hands.

Yuya scurried ahead of him as Reiji slowly hefted Reira down the hallway.

 _He's almost too big for me to carry him like this_ , Reiji thought.

He felt almost a pain strike through his heart at that. Reira was already getting so big. Had Reiji really done everything he should have done for his little brother? So much time he had spent not giving Reira the attention he needed....he felt like it was almost too late for him to make up for it. There were so many things he should have done. So many things that Reira deserved...so many things that had been stolen from him as a child.

Yuya already had the towels spread over the bed by the time Reiji got there. He put his hands on Reira's shoulders as Reiji lowered the boy down on the bed, and together they got Reira comfortably laid down.

Reira's lips opened and closed softly a few times in his sleep. For a moment, it seemed like he wasn't going to let go of Reiji's scarf, and then his grip slackened as he shifted. Reiji pulled back just a few inches. Without Reira's weight in his arms he felt almost....empty all of a sudden.

Silently, like he always seemed to, Yuya was suddenly standing next to him. Without a word, the young man simply leaned against Reiji—almost as though he were childishly trying to make Reiji fall over, but he never pushed his weight just far enough for that. Instead, he was just standing there a little closer than was necessary, putting the warm weight against Reiji's side. As always, Reiji slipped his arm around Yuya's shoulders automatically once he felt the weight settle there.

For a moment, the only sounds he could hear were Reira's soft, sleepy breaths, and Yuya's own quiet breathing.

“Stop that,” Yuya murmured suddenly.

“What?” Reiji said.

“You're beating yourself up again because of Reira. I can sense it.”

“Oh? Are you psychic now?”

“I _might_ be.”

He pressed a little tighter against Reiji.

“You're doing okay,” he said.

Reiji tightened his grip on Yuya's shoulder, as though it were a life raft in a stormy sea.

“Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “....I wouldn't have thought of it. Finger painting, I mean.”

“That's cause you didn't get a childhood either,” Yuya said, and there it was, that rumbly irritation that Yuya always got when he was mad at some state of the world that he couldn't otherwise fix, but he could damn well get angry about it.

Reiji always seemed to find himself falling a little bit deeper for Yuya every time he heard that tone of voice.

Yuya sighed and wrapped his arm around Reiji's waist.

“You stop worrying about it,” he said. “I can be the five-year-old for all three of us. Sound good?”

Reiji laughed, more of a breath out than anything else. He fingered his scarf where Reira's hand had held it, and yellow paint came off on his fingers. For a moment, he just rubbed it between the pads of his fingers, listening to the peaceful breaths of both his lover and his brother.

Peaceful, he thought, with the same resonating awe that he always felt when he remembered. How remarkable it was that he had made it here; through a war and to the other side. To a place that could be called _peaceful_.

Reiji leaned his head briefly against the top of Yuya's. Then he very deliberately reached over and pressed his yellow-paint finger to Yuya's nose.

“Heeeeyyy,” Yuya said.

“What,” Reiji said with a soft laugh. “I thought we were finger painting.”

Yuya responded with a still wet finger of orange paint being wiped across Reiji's cheek.

“Get out here into the living room, I'll show you finger painting,” he said with a devious grin.

His paint covered hand dropped into Reiji's and the colors smeared between them as he dragged Reiji out of the peaceful room, down the peaceful hall, and into the peaceful, if chaotically colored, living room.

 


End file.
